Gears 5 has had a rocky start. However, it’s mostly from a technical perspective and is not gameplay, or story related. First, the developers, The Coalition, had some issues regarding the game’s servers, and Xbox itself had problems. After that, Co-Op began to have problems, along with in-game chat. Now, players are unable to gain any experience points in the game following multiplayer matches. Here’s what’s going on, and what players can do to get around the problem, or avoid wasting their time.
Players Not Receiving Experience Points in Gears 5 Multiplayer
What’s Going On?
Following a completed multiplayer match, traditionally, a player receives a review of how they did in the game, and they earn the respective experience points for their work. The experience points differ based on a player’s performance and the type of achievements they completed when they were playing the match.
However, when this screen pops up, some players are encountering an error. The screen tells them that they were unable to receive any further information at the time, due to their connection to the server. The player can choose to continue to remain in the multiplayer queue to go into the next game or drop out of the main menu. Regardless of their decision, they won’t receive anything for their progress. Even players who are seeing the full review of their match results are not earning any experience points for their hard work.
Given The Coalition’s issues with server stability due to the number of players they’ve had jump into the early access edition, it makes sense they’re having trouble. The developers didn’t seem to expect a large number of players to get involved in their early access program, causing difficulties for everyone.
What Is Being Done?
The Coalition has been on top of these problems from day one. When the server issues first cropped up, they jumped on Twitter to state to their players and fanbase they were on the case. They provided the community with hourly updates, notifying them of new patches, and that they were actively aware of the problem. Because the experience point issue is so widespread, players can expect the team is well aware of the problem. Right now, it’s only a matter of time before they address it in a patch.
Hopefully, they handle it before Gears 5 officially releases to the public tomorrow, on Sept. 10.
What Might Happen With a Patch?
Several things could occur with an eventual patch when The Coalition release it. The worst-case option is all the players lose their progress, and they start back at level 1. The Coalition would likely do this because the servers have been unable to track player’s progression, and the game might not be able to hand out the rewards properly. They’d do this if they knew not everyone was going to get their rewards. Rather than risk some players never getting anything, they’d set everyone back to the start. It’s not an ideal choice, but for those who want to make sure they get their rewards, it might be worth it.
The alternative is the rewards are not processing correctly, but the server has adequately been keeping track of this progress and are waiting for someone to make the adjustments. When they do with the new patch, everyone is going to receive the rewards they are eagerly awaiting, and then everything returns to normal with the expected progression process.
Many players are likely going to want the latter over the former, but we’ll see what happens. Despite The Coalition not having the best streak with Gears 5, it’s a fun game. Fans are going to love playing over and over again.
What Can Players Do?
Right now, you have to make a decision. If you have the experience points issue bug, you may want to hold off on continuing the multiplayer portion of the game. Maybe you and your friends play through a few Horde mode waves or run through a Swarm nest in Escape. But if you want your rewards from Versus and the competitive portion of Gears 5, you may find it better to hold off for the update to process and then jump back in following it.
Gears 5 officially releases for the Xbox One and PC on Sept. 10.
